- Edwin Moyo, Zimbabwe’s horticulture industry magnate flies under the radar. He is unlike your typical successful Harare businessman. He is not bashful about his wealth or his influence and yet he is very influential.
- The entrepreneur made his mark in a number of ventures most notably horticulture. His success culminated in his operations at a farm in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands called Kondozi.
- At its peak, Edwin Moyo’s Kondozi horticulture venture employed as many as 15,000 people and supported the local economy of Mutare.
- Kondozi exported fresh produce as far as Europe and Edwin Moyo managed to secure long term supply contracts with leading United Kingdom retailers like Tesco.
- Edwin Moyo’s experience in Zimbabwe is very telling of the culture of that country to persecute and to hound its most successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs.
- Kondozi is one of the farms that was forcibly taken over by the government under the guise of the land reform program. Edwin Moyo lost his entire horticulture investment in the farm together with his white partners.
- The Zimbabwe horticulture entrepreneur endured a grueling experience from the state which to frustrate his efforts in business.
- This culture is endemic in Zimbabwe where the government persecutes its most talented entrepreneurs instead of lending them support to grow their businesses as the case of Edwin Moyo and Kondozi.
- Had Kondozi ben allowed to succeed, it would have been a sustainable model for government and other players to emulate around empowerment of communities.
- Kondozi Farm’s horticulture venture according to Edwin Moyo guaranteed small scale farmers around the area where the venture was located an income of at least US$ 3,000.00 annually.
- This thriving horticulture enterprise represents all that went wrong with Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform program.
- Kondozi according to the book written by Edwin Moyo is a story of how the hope of Zimbabwean people was pillaged by greed and deeply entrenched political interests.
This mercurial businessman from Zimbabwe flies under the radar yet his influence in the farming arena and business circles is far reaching. The Kondozi Farm which he ran with white Zimbabwean partners at its height employed no less than 15,000 people from 1997 to 2004 when it was forcibly appropriated by the government. Edwin Moyo is one of the few Zimbabwean businessmen who have survived successive and intense onslaughts of persecution by the state and have thrived.
Edwin Masimba Moyo is a Zimbabwean entrepreneurial genius. Many have never heard of the man because he’s the epitome of low profile. For very good reason, as he has endured the worst persecution by the Zimbabwean government. The man gives a new meaning to what it means to “take a licking and keep on ticking”. Anton Rupert, the late Afrikaner business luminary once said that the man that he truly respected in business was one who through hard work rose up to prominence, was dragged down into failure but rose up once more. Edwin Moyo fits that mould perfectly. That a businessman can suffer persecution by the state, its agents, or well-connected individuals is not sensational especially in Zimbabwe.
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This is a fact that was acknowledged by the former central bank governor, Gideon Gono. The former central banker acknowledged that there was an intentional and deliberate effort to frustrate and persecute business people who had found success in their various fields of expertise. The former governor made these remarks referring to a case where the banking assets of finance supremo Nicholas Vingirai had been expropriated by the state compulsorily in the aftermath of the Zimbabwean banking crisis of 2004.
Nick Vingrai the father of banking in Zimbabwe
Nick Vingirai founded the Intermarket Discount House in the early 1990s when the financial services sector of Zimbabwe was liberalized and the space was opened up to black players who had capital and expertise to build and run financial services companies. Vingirai was accused of breaching the country’s exchange control regulations and fled to the United Kingdom where he spent nearly 8 years. During this time his banking empire Intermarket Financial Holdings Limited was expropriated by the state and merged with ZB Financial Holdings. To date, the compulsory expropriation has been contentious with the parties involved finally resolving in 2019 to separate Vingirai’s assets from ZB.
Strive Masiyiwa’s struggle with Zimbabwe
Strive Masiyiwa the telecoms billionaire had a difficult time setting his Econet Wireless enterprise in Zimbabwe. Upon graduating from Scotland with a degree in engineering, he took a job in the country’s fixed line telephone operator. He pitched the idea of a mobile phone service to them which was the beginning of the end of his career with them. He then started Retrofit Engineering which buttered its bread with government contracts. These contracts soon ran dry when the future telecoms magnate sued the government for denying him a mobile phone license on the grounds that the government had violated the constitution. His fight with government over the mobile license took 5 long arduous years.
Strive Masiyiwa: The Zimbabwean doyen of African business
Edwin Moyo the farmer who fought Robert Mugabe
Who exactly is Edwin Moyo. A name search on Google yields results that are hardly useful unless you refine it to say “Edwin Moyo, Kondozi Farm”. The search results then show his profile. As already mentioned, he flies under the radar. Moyo is unlike the archetypical Zimbabwean business tycoon who is brash and in your face about their wealth. He is not cast in that typical Harare businessman’s mould, yet one of the enterprises he was involved in Kondozi Farm located in Mutare in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe, at its zenith employed no less than 15,000 workers. The fresh fruit and vegetables produced not only supported the local economy but were exported to leading retailers in Europe and the United Kingdom. Kondozi Farm which was Moyo’s flagship horticulture operation represents all that could go wrong and went wrong with Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Program. His farm was invaded in April 2004 and taken over by the government and ended up specifically in the hands of one of Robert Mugabe’s cabinet ministers, Chris Mushowe. In the wake of the farm invasion 10,000 people lost their jobs and countless others lost their livelihoods, which they drew from the economic activities around the farm. Moyo captured his experience with the land reform program in his memoir titled, “My Kondozi Story, The People’s Hope Pillaged”.
Moyo defined the loss of his farm as “harrowing” as he was labelled an enemy of the state. What was painfully ironic for observers is that the government took over a farm owned by a black man that employed thousands of people and generated precious foreign exchange. Moyo laments this fact in the preface of his book by referring to white owned businesses like Colcom, Irvines and Tanganda which is part of the Meikles group, that remained intact despite his being annihilated. The destruction of Kondozi was a classic faux pas for the government. The farm’s exports business when it began operations in December 1996 was US$ 6 million. The business thrived and grew to nearly $50 million USD in exports before it was snatched by Mugabe and his clan in December 2003. The tragedy of Kondozi is reminiscent of the golden goose that laid the golden eggs that was then slaughtered for a momentary dinner.
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During the invasion of the farm, dozens of armed police arrived at the farm in Odzi, armed with water cannons and submachine guns and ordered everyone to vacate the farm. The police who were said to be partisan and overzealous war veterans blocked off the road leading to the farm, looted the offices and beat anyone who sought to resist their orders. What then followed was widespread looting of the farm’s produce and equipment. It is a miracle that the man managed to bounce back from such a devastating experience. It is sad to imagine where a farm like Kondozi would be if it was allowed to thrive and was afforded the support that it needed. Not only did Edwin Moyo suffer major financial loss, he was also slandered in state media outlets that called him an “uncle Tom” for being partners with white individuals in his ventures. To add insult to injury after his tribulations, Moyo writes in his memoir that ministers in government admitted that they made a mistake to destroy his Kondozi enterprise.
Edwin Moyo has since moved on from his experience with Kondozi. He runs a company called Nhimbe Fresh Exports and has led a marketing campaign that opened the UK market to Zimbabwean horticultural produce. His entrepreneurial zeal and passion has reinvented himself, going as far as to sell alcohol and tobacco when the economic environment was not favorable.
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Today, Edwin Moyo is nothing if not resilient. He demonstrates from his experience that one cannot keep a good man down without staying down with him.
